


My Heart Belongs To You

by rebelmeg



Series: Rebelmeg's Tony Stark Bingo Fills 2019 [9]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, F/M, Heaven, Pepper Potts Feels, Pepperony - Freeform, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Post-Canon Fix-It, The closest I can come to a canon happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2020-02-08 16:50:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18627298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rebelmeg/pseuds/rebelmeg
Summary: Someone is waiting for her when Pepper finally reaches the end of her life.Written for TSB, square T2 - without fear





	My Heart Belongs To You

**Author's Note:**

> Here, have a fix-it! Okay, not really a fix-it, but I literally bawled my way through writing this last night and it's the best I can do with what canon gave us.
> 
> Legit fix-it is coming soon, stand by. Because #tonystarklives and I accept nothing less.

Pepper Potts-Stark lived to be seventy-nine years of age. She was just a few weeks shy of her 80th birthday, and if the heart disease that she’d contracted several years ago hadn’t been so advanced, there probably would have been a big party.

She didn’t mind missing it. She’d never really enjoyed big parties all that much.

That had been her husband’s thing.

Yes, it had been thirty-five years since her beloved Tony had passed away, but she still wore the ring he’d picked out, the beautiful gold-titanium alloy band that he’d slid on her finger alongside the engagement ring he’d purchased long before they’d ever gotten together. He might have died, so many years ago, but he was still her husband, and she was all his.

For Pepper, there had never been anyone but Tony. Time didn’t, couldn’t, change that.

In her moments of somewhat darker humor, she joked that her heart had broken the day Tony died, it had just taken a long time for that wound to show in a way that doctors could see. Her daughter, Morgan Stark, Pepper’s favorite person on earth, never found that funny. But she did understand it. Even the faint memories Morgan had of her father were precious to her, and she never begrudged her mother a moment of the years she spent alone. After Tony Stark, whoever else could possibly compare? Morgan had seen the photos, the video clips, the footage, not only of Tony Stark, the billionaire genius, or Iron Man, the hero that saved the universe. But Tony Stark, the devoted husband and father. The man that had loved his girls with every part of his heart and soul. The man that loved her 3000.

It was a snowy day in New York in January when the doctors finally pulled a forty-year old Morgan aside and told her that it was time. Despite so many medical advancements, Pepper’s heart, and the rest of her body, had stopped responding to treatment.

Morgan cried, holding onto her mother’s hand, looking into blue eyes that shone with love, framed by silver hair that hadn’t been strawberry blonde in a long time.

After a few more days, during which Pepper slipped into a sleep that she never woke from, she finally drew her last breath, and her heart gave its last weak beat.

It was an odd sensation, soul separating from body. Something like soaring and falling at the same time, and Pepper only lingered a moment, casting one more look at her daughter, son-in-law, grandchildren, and even two great-grandchildren. She loved them so dearly, and she was so glad they had one another.

Then, Pepper answered the call that pulled her onward, only anticipation and peace filling her being. There was nothing to be afraid of.

In the next moment, one that passed in the blink of an eye and also took an eternity, Pepper found herself standing in a beautiful place. There were almost no words to describe it. Otherworldly, to be sure. Ethereal. Somehow pure white and vivid with color all at the same time.

None of that was what caught her attention, though. No, what caught her attention was the man standing a short distance away, turning towards her as if he’d heard her coming.

His dark brown hair lay in slightly rumpled, loose curls on his head, nearly in need of a trim, curling against the back of his neck and falling over his forehead. His eyes sparkled an achingly familiar whiskey-brown, and the smile lines around his eyes creased as his goateed face lit up with a smile that was more brilliant than sunshine.

He was perfect. Young and whole and smiling at Pepper like she was the best thing he had ever seen. Pepper was running towards him before she could think, the pain and wrinkles and weakness of age gone, her long strawberry-blonde hair flying behind her like a banner as she ran to the love of her life and leapt into his arms.

He was laughing as he spun her around, and oh… he felt exactly the same as she remembered. Warm and vital and solid and everything she had ever wanted.

“Tony,” Pepper whispered against his neck, holding onto him tight. “Tony.”

“It’s about time, Miss Potts. I’ve been waiting for you.” 

His voice had the exact amount of love and teasing humor in it that she had always loved so much, and tears of joy trickled down Pepper’s cheeks.

She pulled back to look in his eyes, the way they glittered with unshed tears. She stroked her fingertips over his cheeks, his forehead, through his hair, over his perfectly groomed goatee. And when she kissed him, it felt like coming home.

“My Tony. I missed you so much.”

“Of course you did. I’m delightful.” His slightly calloused thumbs were gently stroking the freckles on her shoulders, his smile crooked and full of love. “I missed you too.”

“Well, you have me now. Will that be all, Mr. Stark?”

The look on his face was everything. “That will never, ever be all, Miss Potts. You’re my heart, you know.”

Leaning in, Pepper rested her forehead against her husband’s and smiled softly, closing her eyes. “And you’re mine. I love you.”

“I love you too.”

Finally, Tony eased back just a bit, his eyes dancing. “Come on,” he coaxed, pressing a kiss to her forehead and taking her hands in his. “I have so many people that I want you to meet.”

“Yeah?”

“Oh yeah. You’ve never met my mom, or my dad. The Jarvises, Yinsen, Aunt Peggy. I’ve told them all about you.”

Pepper squeezed the hands in hers, and felt so happy it was miracle her skin could hold it all in. “Then lead the way, Tony.”


End file.
